Monday, December 17, 2012

Australian Regrets

We could have all responded like rational human beings and grieved for the deceased (35 in all). Instead, militant anti-gun activists viewed the massacre as an opportunity, and set out to punish freedom.

To concerned Victorians, too, it felt like our criminal class was running the state. The problem though (in Australia at least) is that campaigning newspapers and television networks are never wrong — no matter how many people are killed or threatened by guns, there’s always a “complex” excuse.

The odd thing about gun control is that a culture of censorship often increases after anti-gun laws fail to deliver. So, it would be hard for an Australian writer to submit a piece on Switzerland’s pro-gun ownership culture and low gun crime rate because our media isn’t “ready” to accept opposing views. Only a “thought control” culture can sustain a “gun control” culture.

When one punishes law-abiding citizens for the sins of criminals, good intentions will backfire. By criminalizing productive citizens, we have made life easier for criminals, and wasted precious police resources on policing farmers.

Moreover, Australians were wrong to exchange scare stories about the “Wild West” because few understood that the Old West was not so wild, according to modern historians. And, we’re still too quick to report on massacres in firearm-welcoming America and too reluctant to report on bigger massacres in firearm-restricting Mexico. We’re quick to report on shootouts across the U.S. but unwilling to report on thousands of Americans who were saved by pointing their easy-to-access guns at criminals, a.k.a. would-be thieves, murderers and rapists.

Gun control is a myth, or rather a mountain of myths sustained by campaigning elites in secure buildings with armed bodyguards: the myth that if law-abiding citizens hand their guns over to the big government to burn, then we will enter a new peace; the myth that if we feel that we are gun controllers, then we are humanitarian citizens even when statistics undermine our self-praising image; and the myth that punishing thousands of farmers and sporting shooters, for the crimes of others, will bring healing. But we (meaning anti-gun Australians) were (and are) wrong.

About Me

What I'm Reading

JL Curtis: Gray Man - - Partners

Hitchens

The MSM

A newsroom comprised entirely of leftists/liberals is no more capable of ideological objectivity than an all-white newsroom would be of racial objectivity, or an all-male newsroom of gender objectivity.

FlickR

Captain Louis Renault

"Round Up the Usual Suspects."

The Drawn Cutlass Philosophy

Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect, and don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security, it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Ambrose Bierce

The Foe

When I am free to walk the streets of Mecca or Medina as the agnostic I am and receive nothing but curious glances, I will believe Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.

Sign On. You Know You Want To.

A Few Words From Some Founding Fathers

Jeff Cooper's Rules of Gun Safety

All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.

Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)

Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.

Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.

Bob's Addendum To Cooper's Rules

A Gun is not a Toy. Don't Play With It.

Bob's Theory of Hush Puppies

Bob's Theory of Hush Puppies: The best hush puppies are oblong shaped, rather like dog turds. The worst ones are spherical, like balls. The spherical ones are usually made from the recipe on a pre-packaged box of hush puppy mix.

Restaurant Ratings

My restaurant ratings, mostly intended for BBQ restaurants, will be on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. Unlike most reviewers, I don't intend to play games with the rating scale by introducing fractions such as "2 and 1/2" or "4 and 3/4," I've always considered that stupid and a signal that the reviewer is trying to avoid making an honest 1-5 judgment.

Here is the breakdown of the ratings:

1 out of 5: waste of time, crap, unable to finish eating; apathy by staff/ownership

2 out of 5: edible, but no effort to impress; staff/management going through motions; desultory.

3 out of 5: average; reasonably good food, moderate effort by staff/management

On Self-Reliance

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."